“God Has a Sign And It Reads: Gone Huntin – Part II“, is now available for reading.

Okay, before you go into a tizzy and start screaming “blasphemy” or some other nonsense, give me a chance to explain the title. Believe me, it’s warranted. Many people in this country have fought long and hard to remove God from the docket, but I’m here to tell you, he’s alive and well, and rooted deep inside the hearts of a lot of American sportsmen.

Did you know that in Genesis, Chapter 9, God commissioned man with the job of wildlife management? He did. Did you know that Nimrod and Esau were very skilled hunters who hit the woods and fields with bows and arrows harvesting wild game for food? They were. Did you know that deer, antelope and other wild game were the chosen foods, even before man started eating domesticated meat? Read Deuteronomy Chapter 12. Did you know in Proverbs 12:27 it says that a lazy man neglects to roast his game, but the substance, (the meat taken through hunting), of the diligent man is considered precious? Well, it is. How about in Acts Chapter 10 where God himself commanded the apostle Peter to “rise, kill and eat” when he was hungry…and the passage spoke specifically about animals?

Yup…it’s all in there. The list of scriptures goes on and on my friend. And don’t even start about fishing. Jesus and several of the apostles were fishermen; some of whom even cast “lines” for fish, as well as nets. It was Jesus himself in John Chapter 21 who broiled some fish over a campfire for breakfast, and you outdoors-folk will also be glad to know that an occasional beer or glass of wine is not anti-biblical, no matter what you thought you heard. That’s right, I said it and I can back it all up.

So what’s with the title of this article? Why would it say that God has…’Gone Huntin’”? It’s because I’m bringing him into any and every hunting camp that will personally invite us both in, that’s why.

Not Just Inside Four walls

I’m a hunter, born and bred, and I’ve fished since the age of seven. I’ve got more outdoor stories inside me than you can shake a stick at, and yes, I was raised like most country boys, with a good Mama and a strong Christian background.

However, sad as it may seem, many outdoorsmen today, myself included, have little time for the standard church ceremonies. And I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, and I’m certainly not blaming anyone. Most of my friends are what I affectionately call “modern rednecks”, and that’s a good thing. The guys and gals I know, who love to share hunting and fishing stories over an open fire-pit in the summertime, are also God-fearing, red-blooded Americans, and very proud of it! They work extremely hard…often six days a week or more, they love their families, and any time off they may get, is spent out in the woods and fields or on the water, with family and friends in tow.

Unfortunately, many of us only get the traditional Sunday off as a day of rest, and though we firmly love God…and our pastors…we find it difficult at best to squeeze in a mid-day or evening service that could potentially be spent in camp or on the lake. Obviously, I need to stress that anytime we, as individuals, can make the time to go to church, we should. Our families need the support and so do the countless pastors who strive hard to keep us spiritually fed and “on track”. However, there are a myriad of sportsmen across the country who simply feel they don’t have time on Sunday, and who instead, go “out there”, all the while just trying to enjoy themselves after a hard week, yet still feeling a sense of guilt about it. And that’s where I come in…

Spiritual ‘Road Trips’

About two years ago, I was struggling as a concrete contractor, (self-employed), and found myself working long, hard hours, often six and seven days a week, just to keep the jobs moving. I found that there was little time for church anymore, and with my spiritual upbringing, I was guilt-ridden, especially if I tried to squeeze in a few days for spring turkey hunting or fall deer hunting. In time, I messed up my back and found I couldn’t do the strenuous work anymore so I quit…and immediately found myself unemployed and practically starving. The up side was that my situation drove me back to the books and most importantly, my Bible, and after many months of contemplating where my life was headed, I made the decision to bring both my faith and my outdoor passions, together. The only thing I didn’t want to do was change who I was and become some stuffy old Bible-thumper, knocking on people’s doors and shoving “God” down everyone’s throats. One day it came to me that I didn’t have to change, and ‘Mountain-Man Outdoor Ministries’ was born.

I won’t bore you with details but suffice it to say I’m a redneck, a hunter, a fisherman, and an outdoorsman, and I just happen to like sharing my faith when I can. What better way to do that than to just “be me”, and preach the Word, redneck attitude and all, through which I have also been appropriately referred to as “The Redneck Preacher”. Funny how God works sometimes, isn’t it? We are developing outreaches and programs designed to help kids, and are very interested in working to help set-up special hunts and trips for special people, (any age, disabled or incapacitated beyond their means), who are unable to enjoy hunting on their own anymore.

I’d like to think that the many friends and contacts I’ve made in the professional outdoor industry would be willing to help me in this venture by donating trips, hunts, and much needed gear. If you or anyone you know, wishes to become an active partner in this ministry, please contact me. I am available for interviews, discussions, and studies, and would love to be invited into your hunting camp this season! There’s no better way for me to share my faith than to visit hunting camps across America, share some campfires with redneck sportsmen just like me, hunt and fish with them, and, in effect, bring God straight into the heart of the American Hunting Camp.

I just wonder how many invitations I’ll actually get! You think Waddell and The Nuge could stand the extra excitement in camp? A Redneck Preacher with a Bible in one hand, a rifle or shotgun in the other, and a turkey call hanging out the side of my mouth. Hmmmm….I dunno… Let’s praise God, pass the ammo, and find out. And did I warn you I’d be bringing a camera and cameraman along for the ride? I didn’t? Uh oh…

(Blaine Cardilli is a freelance outdoor writer, industry prostaffer, and seminar speaker on hunting; He also enjoys teaching christian studies to rednecks & sportsmen, and has been referred to as The Redneck Preacher. He can be reached on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theredneckpreacher)

At the time of this writing, it’s the end of March, 2010, and turkey season is about 5 weeks away! It’s a time of excitement for most turkey hunters, as we dig out all the gear, unpack the decoys, and play with our calls. For me, turkey hunting has become a passion and there’s nothing I’d rather do than watch the spring woods wake up at dawn, with my back against a nice big tree. Maine is still relatively new as far as turkey hunting goes, and it seems like only yesterday when we were given our first chance to go chase the wily gobbler. Actually, my area, (the Midcoast region of Maine), didn’t open up to public hunting until 1996 and though many seemed interested, few hunters were successful those first couple years.

I didn’t take an interest until 1998 but back then we were under a lottery system for tags. Sadly, I wasn’t chosen the first few times I entered but that didn’t stop me from hitting the woods to see what all the fuss was about, and I simply traded my weapon for a set of calls and a good pair of optics. The turkey population was sparse in the early days and to hear a distant gobble made my heart race and my blood boil as I took off running through the woods, hoping to get close enough to watch and observe. Having no turkey hunting experience whatsoever, I literally had to learn by trial and error, and one thing that really helped me was to watch them at any and every opportunity, studying their habits, calls, and flock interactions. I even learned enough to become involved in calling in turkeys for friends who were fortunate enough to secure a tag in the beginning when I had none, and so no season afield ever went to waste in my book.

Suffice it to say I’ve come a long way since my initial start in 1998, and the past 12 years have seen a lot of fine-tuning on my part. One of the many things I’ve had to struggle with is the use of decoys and decoy set-ups on turkeys. Like I said, it’s been trial and error mostly, but by trying new strategies each season, I’ve learned what works for me and what doesn’t. Now mind you, nothing is guaranteed in turkey hunting, and no set-up is by any means fool-proof, but if you use a little common sense and Yankee ingenuity, decoys can greatly enhance a hunters spring success.

The ‘Three-Phases’ of Decoy Use

Many times, during the early days of my toying with decoys, there were accepted scenarios already abroad, such as using a single hen, or the infamous ‘love triangle’ approach, in which two jake decoys were placed, (a passive model and an aggressive model), in conjunction with the hen. Unfortunately, the triangle, though it worked well for two back-to-back seasons, abruptly stopped producing for me. In fact, many times the decoys seemed to spook the turkeys, a problem many turkey hunters today still argue about. I won’t forget the first time it happened to me either. I was being filmed for a DVD series and things were looking pretty good. We had struck a gobbler and my calls had managed to lure him some 350-400 yards, through a small patch of woods, across a brook, and up a steep hill, and as the producer readied the big camera for the final scene, the gobbler hung up when he stepped over a stone wall and saw the decoys. He had been gobbling at every call and coming on a string but on looking back, it was the aggressive jake that shut him up and made him run. As soon as he saw it he went the other way…in a hurry!

For me…and through 3-4 seasons of experimentation in which I had nothing to lose…I discovered what I’ve come to call the “3-phases” of decoy use during the spring season. Here in the extreme northeast, our turkeys start to gobble and strut generally in or around the end of March, and active breeding commences in April. Biologists claim that, on average, a hen could pretty much have a full clutch of eggs laid by May 1st, however many factors come into play that could cause these averages to fluctuate. That being said, here is what I, personally, consider to be the best decoy arrangements and when to implement them.

Since our season opens around May 1st and runs for five consecutive weeks, ending the first week in June, I find that putting out a strutting decoy, (and I prefer a tom over a jake), works best for the first week and a half, to two weeks, depending on conditions. This works especially well if used in conjunction with a sitting or breeding-hen decoy, placed nearby. About 2-3 weeks into the season, I’ll swap out the strutter decoy for a standing jake and a standing hen…or even two. As the fourth and fifth weeks come along, I’ll often switch to just a few hens, and depending on the way the breeding season has taken shape, I might only use one.

The reasoning is fairly simple. At the onset of the season, toms and jakes are ready for action and ready to breed; dominance and territorial urges, coupled with the need to mate are strong and so a strutting decoy over a sitting hen often ignites raging jealousy, amidst toms and jakes alike. A boss gobbler who sees a strutter over a hen in his domain will absolutely not tolerate it, and will oftentimes come to the set-up at a full run. If left to see what happens, the boss tom usually tries to fight the decoy before trying to breed the sitting hen.

As the season hits about half way, many toms and jakes have been in so many battles they’re about wore-out, and many times a strutting decoy will scare off a subordinate tom, who just doesn’t have it in him to fight what appears to be another boss gobbler. That’s why switching to a passive jake and a standing hen works well, because the combination of both, especially with a jake who isn’t showing aggression, often allows a sense of security for another tom, even a subordinate, to come in and investigate without the fear of being immediately run off. As to the final week or weeks of the season, I’ve seen incoming toms freeze-up and hang back, even in full strut, if I have a jake decoy near my hen(s). That’s when I switch to only hens in standing or feeding positions. The afore-mentioned hunt in which the gobbler hung up at my decoys happened at the end of the season, and when I had an aggressive jake decoy in the mix.

The scenarios are far from foolproof, as I mentioned earlier, but for me this is what I have found to be a fairly reliable series of set-ups. And of course, with weather conditions and flock sizes, population fluctuations and other contributing factors, the timing could be off a few days either way as to when to switch-out my decoys. But… I’ll know when it’s time merely by watching how the turkeys react. And as to explanations concerning aggressive and passive jakes, keep this in mind… A passive jake will have less red coloration in the head and neck, being almost blue or white. This not only signifies submission, but a breeding attitude as well. An aggressive jake will have a full or mostly red color about the head and neck, and this is, as us rednecks would put it, is a sign he ain’t gonna put up with much from an approaching intruder.

Hopefully, this will give you the confidence you need in trying new decoy strategies this season. Decoys can play a major role in the success or failure of a turkey hunt, and only by experimentation can one become familiar with what to do and what not to do. Good luck in the coming weeks and above all, be safe! Carry your decoys well-concealed in a vest or bag, and when possible consider using a blaze orange hat when transporting both decoys or your harvested turkey.

(Blaine Cardilli is a freelance outdoor writer from Warren, Maine, and is currently on Prostaff with Hunters Specialties and Ameristep Quality Hunting; Blaine is also the vice president of the Midcoast Maine Chapter of the NWTF. He enjoys conducting spring & fall seminars on deer and turkey hunting)

By Stephen Vose
Steve Vose (rabidoutdoorsman@yahoo.com)
Website: www.themaineoutdoorsman.com

By the end of an extremely long day suffering through cold temperatures without even a wind flag to show for our efforts, I was beginning to question why I had even decided to come on this particular fishing trip. The temperature had continued to fall steadily and as the clouds rolled in I knew that it was doubtful conditions would improve. It proved a laborious task, fumbling about with frozen fingers picking up traps, packing gear on pull sleds and trekking the quarter mile back to the vehicles. To say I was a little bit disheartened may have been an understatement and while I understand the sport is called “fishing” and not “catching” it was painfully obvious to me as I trudged through a blinding blizzard toward the anticipated warmth of our vehicles that something fundamental had changed in my understanding of the sport of fishing. It was at this moment that I decided to follow a new fishing mantra and start to fish like a kid again.

I was three years old when my Dad took me ice fishing for the first time on a small body of water in Washington County called Vose Pond. It is a small pickerel pond a short snowmobile ride from my childhood home and hot fishing action could always be guaranteed as long as you had something to use to bait your hooks. Through my youth, I had enjoyed many an outing with my family ice fishing on various pickerel, bass and perch ponds throughout the northeastern parts of Maine. Some of my fondest memories were of outings on Conic Lake.

As I grew older, I began to move beyond this “childish” degree of ice fishing and instead of wanting to catch lots of fish I decided that I would rather only catch one or perhaps none at all. This practice of mine to suffer through hours of fishing for that one glimmer of hope at actually catching something continued for years and years until that one faithful Saturday and my childhood memories of ice fishing transported me back to a simpler time when ice fishing wasn’t about trophy’s it was about the number of flags.

Once the gear was packed in our trucks we began to formulate our plan of attack for the next day of fishing. “Same spot same time tomorrow?” came the familiar query from my friends. “No way!” came my very unfamiliar reply. “What, my friends exclaimed, you don’t want to catch the big one?” “No, I replied I have something else in mind . . . meet me tomorrow around 9:00 AM at the landing on Lower Togus Pond.”

That evening I watched the weather report and noted that the winds would be straight out of the north and that the temperature would continue to be in the twenties. Planning ahead of this forecast I packed a few additional items on my pull sled that evening in preparation for tomorrow’s ice fishing activities. Late that morning, I was met by a confused group of my friends many of whom where trying to decide if I was losing my mind and had decided to try for a state record pickerel. After discussing the game plan to the group we moved slowly around the north side of the lake to small cove I knew well from my spring bass fishing trips. This location, protected us from the high winds and also allowed us to enjoy the benefit of the sunshine as it reached high into the late morning sky late.

We immediately began drilling holes and I quietly sat back in my crazy creek chair to enjoy the show. My friends could barely get in one ice-trap when a flag would go up and they would have to run to tend it and by the time we had in all twenty traps we had 5 yellow perch, 2 bass and several pickerel on the ice. Also using a stashed axe cut some wood I started a small fire on a small rock outcropping. As my friends continued to run for flags I filleted out the fish as they were brought in to our “camp” and by 12:00 I had accumulated a sizeable amount.

It was a this time that I decided to produce a large stainless steel cook pot filled with chunks of raw potatoes and onions barely covered with water that I had sealed tight with duct tape the night before. As this concoctions was brought to a simmer I gently lay the fillets on top of the potatoes and onion and added some salt and pepper. My friends watched in amazement and a few began to drool. When the fish approached completion I added a Nalgene bottle (32 oz) of a mixture of half cream and half milk and after 5 more minutes of simmering over the open flames handed out the bowls and spoon.

As I sat there in my chair warm comfortable and filling my stomach with perhaps the best fish chowder I had ever eaten I pondered if perhaps this had been one of the best days I had ever spent ice fishing. As we all sat around the small fire busily eating my friend spoke up and asked “So next weekend we back to try for the big one?” Well, I guess that some people never learn or perhaps it is just that for some hope springs eternal and like an idiot I replied, “Sounds like a plan to me!”